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In Virginia, GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell has declared that April will be Confederate History Month. McDonnell's two immediate Democratic predecessors, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, declined to do so while in office. McDonnell said Tuesday that the move was designed to promote tourism in Virginia, which next year will mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War.

The Confederacy heritage issue has bedeviled politicians of both parties in Virginia. About two years ago, I wrote a piece for POLITICO about Democratic Sen. Jim Webb’s seeming affinity for aspects of the Confederacy. The article, needless to say, stirred up lots of discussion and controversy.

Is the proclamation appropriate? Is it a reasonable acknowledgment of the state's history or does it overlook slavery's central role in the Confederacy's attempted creation and the outbreak of the Civil War?

Former Virginia governor and current DNC chairman Tim Kaine has issued a statement on the Confederate proclamation.

“Governor McDonnell’s decision to designate April as Confederate History Month without condemning, or even acknowledging, the pernicious stain of slavery or its role in the war disregards history, is insensitive to the extraordinary efforts of Americans to eliminate slavery and bind the nation’s wounds, and offends millions of Americans of all races and in all parts of our nation.

“In recent years, Virginia has broken the back of segregation, become the first state in America to elect an African-American governor, passed a unanimous General Assembly resolution expressing profound regret for 'the most horrendous of all depredations of human rights and violations of our founding ideals in our nation's history,' and cast its electoral votes for President Obama. Neither America nor Virginians want to go backward.

“A failure to acknowledge the central role of slavery in the Confederacy and deeming insignificant the reprehensible transgression of moral standards of liberty and equality that slavery represented is simply not acceptable in the America of the 21st century.”

This has actually bedeviled politicians of both parties in Virginia. About two years ago I wrote a story for POLITICO on Democratic Sen. Jim Webb’s seeming affinity for aspects of Confederate heritage.

Barack Obama’s vice presidential vetting team will undoubtedly run across some quirky and potentially troublesome issues as it goes about the business of scouring the backgrounds of possible running mates. But it’s unlikely they’ll find one so curious as Virginia Democratic Sen. Jim Webb’s affinity for the cause of the Confederacy.

Webb is no mere student of the Civil War era. He’s an author, too, and he’s left a trail of writings and statements about one of the rawest and most sensitive topics in American history.

He has suggested many times that while the Confederacy is a symbol to many of the racist legacy of slavery and segregation, for others it simply reflects Southern pride. In a June 1990 speech in front of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, posted on his personal website, he lauded the rebels’ “gallantry,” which he said “is still misunderstood by most Americans.”

Webb, a descendant of Confederate officers, also voiced sympathy for the notion of state sovereignty as it was understood in the early 1860s, and seemed to suggest that states were justified in trying to secede.

“Most Southern soldiers viewed the driving issue to be sovereignty rather than slavery,” he said. “Love of the Union was palpably stronger in the South than in the North before the war — just as overt patriotism is today — but it was tempered by a strong belief that state sovereignty existed prior to the Constitution and that it had never been surrendered.”

Webb expanded on his sentiments in his well-received 2004 book, “Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America,” which portrays the Southern cause as at least understandable, if not wholly laudable.

“The venerable Robert E. Lee has taken some vicious hits, as dishonest or misinformed advocates among political interest groups and in academia attempt to twist yesterday’s America into a fantasy that might better service the political issues of today,” he wrote. “The greatest disservice on this count has been the attempt by these revisionist politicians and academics to defame the entire Confederate Army in a move that can only be termed the Nazification of the Confederacy.” As in the Confederate Memorial speech, Webb suggests in his book that relatively few Southerners were slaveholders and that the war was fought over state sovereignty, which in the eyes of many at the time included the right to secede from the national government.

“The states that had joined the Union after the Revolution considered themselves independent political entities, much like the countries of Europe do today,” Webb wrote. “The 10th Amendment to the Constitution reserved to the states all rights not specially granted to the federal government, and in their view the states had thus retained their right to dissolve the federal relationship.”

There’s nothing scandalous in the paper trail, nothing that on its face would disqualify Webb from consideration for national office. Yet it veers into perilous waters since the slightest sign of support or statement of understanding of the Confederate cause has the potential to alienate African-Americans who are acutely sensitive to the topic.

Ron Walters, director of the African American Leadership Center at the University of Maryland and a professor of political science there, said Webb’s past writings and comments on the Confederacy could dampen enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket, should he appear on it.

“Unless he is able to explain it, it would raise some questions,” Walters said.

Edward H. Sebesta, co-author of the forthcoming “Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction” (University of Texas Press), said Webb’s views express an unhealthy regard for a political system that propped up and defended slavery.

His book, in fact, will cite Webb as an example of the mainstreaming of neo-Confederacy ideas into politics, said Sebesta, a widely cited independent historical researcher and author of the Anti-Neo-Confederate blog.

“I don’t think people have thought through the implications of how his ideas have racial overtones, even if they are inadvertent,” Sebesta said.

Webb’s office declined to comment for this story.

Kristian Denny Todd, who served as communications director in Webb’s 2006 Senate campaign, said his remarks about the Confederacy should be viewed in the context of paying tribute to his Scots-Irish Southern forbears and his military sense of duty.

“He doesn’t defend the war at all or the practice of slavery. He does make arguments about why the South seceded,” said Denny Todd. “The individual Confederate soldier, for the most part, did not own slaves. They weren’t wealthy landowners. Webb simply talks about why these men — mostly poor and white — stepped up and answered the call to serve.”

The distinctions Webb makes, however, tend not to receive a full airing in the heat of political debate.
Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s praise for Southern Partisan magazine, a journal sympathetic to the Confederate cause, helped delay his confirmation early in the Bush administration.

Other issues related to the Confederate legacy have proved equally thorny for politicians on both sides of the aisle. Questions surrounding the Confederate flag contributed to the defeat of Gov. David Beasley (R-S.C.) in 1998 and Gov. Roy Barnes (D-Ga.) in 2002.

In the 2004 Democratic presidential primary campaign, Democratic candidates awkwardly struggled with an NAACP-led economic boycott of South Carolina that was designed to force the removal of a Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds. Later in the campaign, Democrat Howard Dean drew criticism for claiming that he wanted to be the “candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.”

Four years earlier, in his first presidential run, Sen. John McCain wavered about the Confederate flag removal issue in South Carolina but later apologized for his equivocation. In advance of the South Carolina primary this year, he issued a full-throated call to take down the divisive symbol, joining the Democratic presidential candidates who took the same position.

Webb’s comments about the Confederacy already received some airing during his successful 2006 upset victory over then-Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), when a smattering of news outlets and blogs noted his past statements and writing about the Civil War era.

Most prominent was a May 2006 Richmond Times-Dispatch article revisiting Webb’s Confederate Memorial speech, which ran about a month before Webb’s Democratic primary victory and proved to be a one-day story.

In a different context, Webb’s record might very well have made a bigger splash. But it was largely overshadowed by other developments. At the time, it was widely perceived that Webb had more damaging exposure from his 1979 Washingtonian magazine article titled “Women Can’t Fight,” in which Webb, an ex-Marine, described one of the Naval Academy’s coed dorms as “a horny woman’s dream” and argued against allowing women to take combat roles.

Then the New Republic and other news organizations ran stories suggesting that Allen had his own racial insensitivity problems, featuring recollections by long-ago acquaintances of racial slurs, a noose that hung in his law office and a high school fascination with Confederate paraphernalia that continued into adulthood.

Webb generally remained silent during Allen’s Confederacy controversy, focusing instead on the Republican’s support for the Iraq war and other issues. Three months later, Allen’s caught-on-video reference to a Webb campaign volunteer as “macaca” took center stage and set in place a campaign narrative that dominated media coverage until his narrow defeat.

Webb won overwhelming support from black voters — 85 percent — who accounted for 16 percent of all voters, according to exit polls.

“How can you say that something that was detrimental and antithetical to [African-Americans’] being is something that anyone could be celebrating?”

“I hope [Gov. Bob McDonnell] will revise that proclamation to give an inference to who Virginians really are, and what they feel is celebratory.”

“I don’t think Republicans benefit from doing this.”

“If you want to teach the history of America, if you want to teach about slavery and the effects it did have and still have, then you need to teach that and speak of that.”

“You have to remember that we are a strong nation because we ended this rebellion, we ended this revolution, and we are united as a result of it.”

“I take issue with the fact that the vast majority of Virginians showed how they felt in 1989 when they said, we’re going to elect an African-American to be governor. We have moved past that point. We’re not going to celebrate what was done; he’s equal to govern the entire state. If that was the case in 1989, why would we, some two decades later, leap all over that and celebrate what took place prior to that time?”

Gov. Bob McDonnell's "party should be gravely concerned. They can’t be the party of Lincoln and deny the legacy of slavery in this country or give it short shrift.”

“Our primary concern is the decision to exclude the language about slavery ... it’s whitewashing at best and rolling the clock back at worst to exclude that language, especially in these times. These are times that are increasingly racist and far right wing. You can look from the halls of Congress … to education by attempting to remove civil rights history from textbooks, and tea party rallies; you see this as a movement that is both far right-wing in its orientation and in one way or the other, treats black people in a way that is second-class.”

“There is this strain of disregard and disrespect with the fundamental truths of our history.”

“At the very least, he has to revise to include the reference to slavery.”

“People want to believe that leaders have courage, that they have backbone, that even when it may pinch supporters, they are willing to speak the truth.”

“It’s not about being politically correct, but being correct. You can’t talk about the confederacy and the Civil War and not talk about slavery. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

I am sure that this issue will lead the broadcasts of the alphabet network’s news this evening. Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer and Brian Williams will not be able to resist since it plays into the narrative they are carefully crafting for this election season - Republicans and Tea Party folks wear sheets and hoods to their meetings, are racists and they hate Obama because he is black. I am sure Wolf Blitzer will speak in somber tones and treat this like the first shot at Fort Sumter and that we are headed for another bloody civil war.

Many here in the Arena also believe this narrative and are pushing it, although they couch it in nicer terms, because it plays to their political view of the world.

Reading the comments from Terry McAuliffe was like sitting in one of those ridiculous insipid “diversity training” sessions corporations are forced to give their employees. He had all the buzz words and phrases.

Democrats and their handmaidens in the mainstream media are eager to deflect the voter’s attention away from a jobless recovery, the Iranian nukes, the unilateral disarming of America, massive Russian arms sales to Venezuela, trouble in Afghanistan and debt as far as the eye can see.

You folks in academia and the cloistered world of Washington need to get out more and talk to the real Americans out here in Bumpkinville, USA.

If they ever give it a thought they won’t care one wit about this issue. They are worried about keeping their homes and peering into a future of higher taxes and meager growth.

Perhaps if Washington D.C. was suffering from high unemployment like the rest of the country instead of being the center of the only growth industry in the nation - the government and lobbyists - they would see the world differently.

Come this November unemployment in Washington will likely take a tick upward. Not to worry Democrats, Obama will have jobs for all so you can continue to keep your porcine snouts in the government trough.

My philosophy about this whole issue of race and diversity is summed up by a quote from John Wayne.

“Never think anyone is better than you, but never assume you’re superior to anyone else. Try to be decent to everyone, until they give you reason not to.”

So let’s stop all this navel-gazing and mock outrage about a simple proclamation of an historic event. The country is going to Hell and the Washington eggheads and elitists consume themselves with nonsense.

And you wonder why folks are so mad they could swallow a horned toad backwards?

I've been teaching about the causes of the Civil War for over 30 years and don't think I have ever heard a student sound as ignorant about its causes as Gov. Bob McDonnell appears to be: "There were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia."

Just a few facts you might want to know for the exam, Bob: it was in colonial Virginia that African-American slavery first became established in custom and law in North America; every antebellum president from Virginia was a large slaveholder; the decision of the Virginia legislature to secede made it possible to establish the Confederacy, all of whose leaders were slaveholders, and who directed their troops to kill those captured Union prisoners who were former slaves; Abraham Lincoln, the first and most revered president of your own party, made clear in his second Inaugural address that slavery "was the cause of the war." So how was slavery not "significant" for Virginia?

Gov. McDonnell's attempt to keep it redneck deserves the head scratch, but it's clearly a move of political expedience. Sure, the decision is a bit baffling to the casual observer. If that pressed, why not go for a more neutral "Virginia Civil War History Month?" It is history ... as brutal, oppressive and distasteful as it is. And what's the real political gain in reviving Civil War wounds considering Virginia's rapidly changing demographics? Most folks are apt to forget they're in the commonwealth when driving through Arlington or Fairfax County. The darker shade of population spurt in NOVA should give any state-wide politician pause before prompting a Confederate knee-jerk.

But, in McDonnell's case, perhaps the conservative machine from central to Southern Virgina is that powerful. Probably - especially since rural VA legislators control the fate and funding of very urban Northern VA's out-of-control traffic problem. Even though he's a single-term executive, he'll need that same machine's support when pushing legislation in the very mercurial Virginia General Assembly. It could be a tremendous pain proposing tax and fee increases to headstrong country Republicans - but, they'll remember him for this particular gimmick.

To the conservative activists, rabble-rousing Tea Partiers and Southern revisionists, McDonnell can claim needed authenticity. It maintains a strong electoral map for Senate-candidate McDonnell, who may have Sens. Webb (D) or Warner (D) (most likely the former) in his scope. Let's not feign surprise should Webb step up his Confederate heritage game, throwing out a General Lee quote or two at a town hall. The loot-packed Warner is above that, though, with dreamy eyes set on a White House run. Going national means keeping your battle flag linens locked up.

With his not-so-Southern and fairly Fairfax roots, McDonnell has to show some Confederate bona fides. This was always a worry amongst the Virginia conservative base: "is he a closet moderate?" Believe it or not, he had to carefully manage high-profile African American support during his gubernatorial bid in a way that didn't lose votes from White Virginians. Going "rebel" relieves that tension - at the expense of black support. What is bothersome is that the commonwealth's black political establishment will, yet again, get wound up over an issue that does little to reverse African-American unemployment, poverty and health disparity trends in Virginia. But, what Republican candidate cares about that these days? The GOP can barely elect any African-American Republicans to Congress.

There is a more disturbing element to this latest episode over Southern pride. First: few want to acknowledge that the Confederacy was, by definition, treason - it triggered domestic terrorism of the worst kind. Observing it as historical pride is, on some levels, short of criminal and anti-constitutional. It's defiant regionalism expressed through Tea Party rage, secessionist talk and an anti-government mood unleashed by Second Amendment fanatics. In this climate, McDonnell assumes he's got enough cover - not unlike many of his dumbstruck colleagues in the Grand Old Party who believe they can control this thing. But, in the end, they're just playing with fire.

Gov. Bob McDonnell’s decision is shameful. If you’re going to declare April as “Confederate History Month” to commemorate, “… the Commonwealth’s shared history, to understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War, and to recognize how our history has led to our present;” then have the courage and character to embrace the full truth, not hide from or censor it. This is not about being “PC”.

What lesson are we teaching children when we tell them that it’s OK to pick and choose the facts they want to believe, and ignore the ones that might be ugly, painful or we might even disagree with?

The shame is in the proclamation’s failure to acknowledge the full range of the truth about the Civil War and Virginia’s role in it. What about the sacrifices of whites who were part of the underground railroad and helped slaves escape to the north, or those who did not support the confederacy, or the African slaves who actually fought on the side of the confederacy? If we are going to celebrate and honor sacrifice, let us also celebrate the progress we have made since the Civil War, which should be a source of pride for every American, just as we must acknowledge the work that remains to be done.

For me this is very personal. My father, who is African American, is from Virginia. The Finney name comes from the man who once owned my family as slaves. My mother, Mildred Lee, is the great, great, great niece of Robert E. Lee, or “the General”, as he is referred to by my family. I am therefore the great, great, great, great niece of General Lee. That is my American story, a mixed race heritage that I am proud of, just as Virginia, the South and our country has a mixed history.

Rather than fall prey to the mindless politics of “either, or”, we must stop being afraid of the truth and acknowledge all of it. Denying one part is like denying a part of ourselves and it does a disservice to our country’s rich history and to the people who have worked hard to help make America a great country.

For a man who campaigned on bringing people together, Bob McDonnell has done more to reopen old divisions than any Virginia governor in recent history.

Yes, it's true that Virginia's role during the Civil War is something worth remembering as we approach the 150th anniversary of the war's beginning. But unlike previous governors that commemorated Civil War History Month, McDonnell chose instead to celebrate the Confederacy alone, knowing full well that it is a symbol offensive and divisive to so many people. It's shameful.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell is following in Texas Gov. Rick Perry's secessionist footsteps, marching the GOP back to a divisive past not forward into a united future. Why is McDonnell being unnecessarily divisive in picking one side of the Civil War to mark its 150th anniversary?

Every leader commemorating history faces a similar choice: how to honor the past as it was through the lens of today. If the Virginia governor's goal is tourism, not politics, then McDonnell can honor all rather than some, just as other governors do when they honor Christopher Columbus and indigenous people each October.

Defenders of Confederate History Month will likely assert that it is a neutral examination of events of undoubted great importance in the history of the commonwealth. Such an assertion does not survive a reading of the proclamation’s first sentence: “April is the month in which the people of Virginia joined the Confederate States of America in a four year war between the states for independence that concluded at Appomattox Courthouse… “

The “people of Virginia” is used in a way that excludes those Virginians of African descent, many of whom made their way across the lines to fight and sometimes to die on behalf of the United States and whose sacrifice goes unmentioned. The “war between the states” is a phrasing that belies the fact that on the other side of Virginia was not a different group of states acting in concert, but the nation formed under the Constitution of the United States by American patriots in 1787. The fight for "independence" was a revolt against the United States motivated by a determination to maintain the institution of slavery.

I could go on, but the first sentence is enough to set the tone of the document. As a Southerner by birth and training, I find the spirit of the Proclamation deeply distressing.

Gov. Bob McDonnell had three choices and he chose the worst one. He could have continued his predecessors' practice of not making the declaration. As former Gov. Mark Warner pointed out during his time in office, these things end up being flashpoints in a political culture that hardly needs more.

Alternatively he could declare April Civil War History Month as a way to call attention to the powerful history that transpired on Virginia’s soil — the Commonwealth saw a great deal of the fighting, was home to the capitol of the Confederate States, and obviously played a key role in the war. Doing so would allow for a complete accounting for the war — including slavery — and a richer discussion of its lessons and legacy. And it would also meet the governor’s goal of capitalizing on the forthcoming set of anniversaries as a way to drive tourism to Virginia.

Instead, McDonnell is stoking a fire we would all do well to allow to cool. It’s a very unfortunate choice and a step backwards especially in light of his other efforts to address the legacy of race in Virginia, for instance on education.

The history of the Civil War is, of course, very important to Virginians, and holds continuing lessons for us. But, as the Washington Post article shows, this is more about gubernatorial politics than about Virginia history.

Gov. Bob McDonnell ran as a moderate but is now revealing his true colors. The proclamation has as much to do with the continuing desire of his radical base to secede from the union as with his desire to honor Virginia's history. Voters in other states who might be considering voting for "moderate" Republicans should take notice.

As a northerner attending the University of Virginia Law School in the early 1960s but who considered himself a national or mainstream Democrat, I learned very quickly that rejection and rebellion ran deep in the southern soul. At one political banquet, a venerable member of the bar held forth on how relevant the doctrine of "interposition" whereby states could interpose their sovereignty to block federal excess, was relevant to beating back forced integration. I saw grown men cry at a bar as one of their group recited from memory Lee's farewell to his soldiers after the surrender at Appomattox. I saw a sitting member of the House of Representatives tell a joke about the first black astronaut, the punch line of which was, "It's too late. The Jig's up."

All of which made the subsequent political transformation of Virginia something to behold.I saw friends who began the decade as segregationists volunteer to work on Bobby Kennedy's campaign and weep like babies when he was murdered. I saw athletic teams at newly integrated high schools volunteer to become role models for racial harmony and cooperation. And, of course, I saw the Old Dominion elect one black governor and help a second to win his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination and, subsequently, the election.

Yet now and then events suggest that Virginia's evolution - and perhaps that of the entire South is incomplete. Some years ago Virginia's black leaders woke up on the wrong sides of their beds, claiming that the official state song, "Carry Me Back to Old Virginia," was an insult as the person singing it is a slave. Promptly the legislature capitulated. So what are we to make of the effort by GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell to establish Confederate History Month?

First, in this observer's view, nothing of historic significance should be off limits for historical inspection and analysis, not slavery, not the Holocaust, not the butchery in Rwanda or the Sudan. We are not endorsing history by studying the subject. Second, we must not lose consciousness that the wounds from many of these events are slow to heal and can be reopened through careless or cavalier handling. Those organizing the planned exhibit should not ignore the failure of the South, including Virginia, to recognize as untenable and evil a war fought to keep the oppressed in chains. Nor should Gov. McDonnell allow or encourage permitting a relic of the past - such as the Confederate flag - to again fly over state capitols, symbolizing a form of resistance that we as a people would have been far better off without.

As someone who works for the first major Republican organization to endorse civil rights legislation in the 1960s, I have to think that centrists were taken aback by this proclamation. It flies in the face of the pragmatic style of decision-making McDonnell displayed during his campaign, and opens a can of worms that should have been left on the shelf.

That said, I don’t think it will diminish his popularity with Republicans and voters in the middle. He is viewed as a problem-solver, someone who is tackling the challenges he said he would tackle and, for the most part, leaving the controversial pronouncements to his attorney general.

The South has a difficult history. For most whites, the Confederacy and its heroic battle to survive are an inherent part of their heritage, one that cannot be dismissed as "offensive" and forgotten. For blacks, that this same Confederacy was defending such an oppressive institution as slavery makes nostalgic remembrances of the War Between the States offensive indeed.

The best way to handle this dichotomy is not to censor one part of the South's history from public recognition, but for the Southern states to celebrate all of their history, with attention to secession and its aftermath, which so shaped the region, and to the heroic battle of African-Americans, especially in the last half century, to gain an equal place in Southern life.

Oh, come on, Virginia. Just secede and get it over with. As a white southerner from Texas -- another state with 21st century secession fever -- I find Confederate History Month an atrocity. I know that the War Between the States was never about states' rights in some purely academic vacuum. It was about a state's right to permit slavery, end of story.

If Gov. Bob McDonnell fails to acknowledge this obvious and historic fact about the Confederacy, then he's probably just simply paying a debt to a special interest from his winning coalition, in particular the Virginia Republican party's Jefferson Davis wing. Well, that's politics. That's easy to ignore.

But we cannot ignore that the "lifestyle of the Confederacy" and the "valor" of its mostly non-slave owning foot soldiers and the glories of the antebellum South that was built stone by stone on an economy fueled by human bondage and the forced labor of men, women, and children has been over-mythologized and over-romanticized for over a hundred years popular culture as a method to bury the moral failure of American slavery as practiced in the American South and as codified in the American Constitution by the Founding Fathers. The Congresses that failed to solve and end slavery in the 1850s are now recalled as similar to today's Congresses in our failures to find compromise on important national issues. Great! That's the standard by which we're measured, the period at the precipice of our Civil War. As a classically educated antebellum agrarian might have said, "O, tempore, O, mores."

Despite all the historical re-enactments to the contrary, Jeff Davis and Robert E. Lee's leadership led the South to be razed to the ground. Out of that defeat--a defeat led by a Republican president advocating civil rights and affirmative action for black me, women, and children--came this revisionist gloss of finer days that the Confederacy Month celebrates. The finer days of slavery? I ask my Republican friends who are members of the modern Republican party and Republicans here on the Arena, are you not appalled at how your party's great president, Abraham Lincoln, is thought of by Confederacy Month celebrants? Do you think Abraham Lincoln is considered a hero in the Confederate History Month tea parties? Who is afforded the greater acclaim in Confederate History Month cheering, the Great Emancipator or the Commandant of Andersonville? Make no mistake, Confederate History Month celebrates a time and a place in which human slavery was a way of life and a lifestyle. So let's call it what it is, Slavery Month, and that's what it celebrates.

Another day, another debate about Republicans and race. Frankly, this nation has much bigger fish to fry.

Will we be getting a European-style value added tax soon, raising the cost of all goods and products in our nation? The answer is yes, according to President Barack Obama’s top economic adviser Paul Volcker.

Will we undermine our national security by setting dangerous preconditions on the use of our nuclear arsenal? The answer is yes, according to Obama himself.

Is the health care entitlement Obama created already creating economy-crushing losses for major corporations, likely leading to job losses? The answer is yes, according to AT&T, Caterpillar, 3M, John Deere and others.

We should celebrate end, not beginning, of the Civil War. Can’t believe April is Confederate History Month in Virginia. Hope teachers cover what dispute actually involved and why Lincoln was courageous in taking the stance he did against the Confederacy.

Think what America would be like today if the Southern states had seceded. You would need a passport to travel to Florida. We would have separate currencies between the South and the North. Our foreign policy would look very different if the South had a different view from the North.

Gov. Bob McDonnell has issued a proclamation declaring April "Confederate History Month." As politicians often do with news they're not really publicizing, McDonnell posted the proclamation on his website Friday, but no one noticed until Tuesday. The proclamation urges Virginians to "understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War" but does not mention slavery.

Virginia's last Republican governor, Jim Gilmore, in issuing a proclamation remembering the Civil War, had at least acknowledged reality: "The practice of slavery was an affront to man's natural dignity, deprived African-Americans of their God given inalienable rights, degraded the human spirit and is abhorred and condemned by Virginians . . . Had there been no slavery, there would have been no war." Amazingly, he was criticized for that simple and obvious statement, as was I when I quoted it a few years back.

We shouldn't pretend history never happened, and the Confederacy is part of history. But so is the slave system that the Southern states seceded in order to maintain. In 1860 there were almost 500,000 slaves in Virginia, more than in any other state. Historical recollections of the Confederacy should not ignore that fact.

It was in Gov. Bob McDonnell's state that the great Virginian, Robert E. Lee, surrendered to the even greater American, Ulysses S. Grant. The site was Appomattox, one of that beautiful spots the governor presumably wants all those prospective tourists to see.

It was there that Grant and Lee began the arduous process of reconciliation and healing -- a process some say is still not finished. Why not issue a proclamation honoring that?

McDonnell and his cynical consultants do his political base a great disservice. How many of them really wish the southern cause if independence had prevailed -- or that slavery had survived into the 20th century?

Surely, that would have strangled "American exceptionalism" in its cradle -- and with it, the capacity of the U.S. to be a force of good in the world. Someone ought to remind the governor that one can honor the bravery of the fallen without sympathizing with the cause for which they were sent into battle. A man who spent as much time in the north as McDonnell should know better.

And yes, the cause of the war was slavery. Jeff Davis was quite clear about that.

I come from Missouri, which has obviously had a long and complicated history in matters related to the Civil War. There, the most recent controversies have centered around whether to fly the Confederate flag at Civil War cemeteries.

My view on Gov. Bob McDonnell’s proclamation is the same as I have held on most of these sorts of controversies, that they can be resolved with two simple guidelines: Winners write and celebrate their history. And the winners fly their flags.

Let me get this right. Gov. Bob McDonnell wants to attract tourists to his state by drawing attention to the fact that his state committed high treason by taking up arms against the union and the federal government for the purpose of preserving human bondage.

Great. What’s next? Is Alabama going to announce a Eugene “Bull” Connor month? The declaration, like the old Confederacy and the white supremacist ideal it represented, should be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner plans to visit Beijing Thursday for meetings about the ongoing dispute over China's currency. POLITICO reports Wednesday on growing populist angst against China across the political spectrum over the currency issue, trade policies and several other issues. What message should Secretary Geithner deliver to his Chinese counterparts? How might President Obama be helped or hurt politically by relations with China?

The populist anger conflates three issues: U.S. debt held by China, China's currency manipulation that weakens the U.S. dollar, and the U.S. trade debt with China.

The first, debt held by China, can only be resolved by reducing our own federal deficit and it's not likely that we will cancel two wars and high end tax cuts tomorrow so that resentment with our banker will linger. The second, currency manipulation, has a slim chance of changing through bilateral talks, but the risk is that tough talk in public will be received as losing face, which China is unlikely to do, so the real success will only be possible behind the scenes. The third, the trade debt, is the real crux of the problem because America has yet to compete our way out of this imbalance.

Made in China is replacing Made in America on the shelves of Wal-Marts and Mac Stores across the US and around the world. People are losing jobs, treading water and waiting for the new, new thing to innovate us out of this. The best option for President Obama is to channel public anger into support for creating more American jobs that cannot be outsourced away, investing in small business startups, continuing the Recovery Act critical infrastructure projects, and passing an energy bill with an innovative clean tech jobs agenda. Yelling at our banker about our loan may make us feel good in the short term, but creating economic self-reliance is our only solution for the long term.

On China, it’s more than a populist backlash. Economists Paul Krugman and Fred Bergsten, the CEOs of some Fortune 500 companies, the leaders of India, France, the UK, and Canada, not to mention the president, have all said China must start playing by the rules.

It’s not only American workers and factories being hurt; China’s exchange rate policies are depressing global growth and contributing to dangerous global imbalances. Economically, either sanctioning China (Bergsten and Krugman both say this will not start a trade war) or compelling China to substantially raise the value of its currency is the right thing to do.

Politically, we have close to 10 percent unemployment, the economy at the top of mind for voters everywhere, most Americans see a bleak future for our children, and everyone is terrified of the increasingly unhelpful role China is playing in the world. Plus, Americans think the best thing we can do to spur the economy is to create more factory jobs according to a recent Gallup poll. There’s no better way to do that than fix the exchange rate problem with China.

How do we know this? President Nixon imposed import tariffs and took the dollar off the gold standard in 1971 — it worked for jobs and exports. President Ronald Reagan, his hand forced by Rep. Richard Gephardt and others in Congress, negotiated the Plaza Accords to set exchange rates right with Japan and Western Europe, and also provided relief for core American industries — our economy benefited and our trade deficit was reduced, at least temporarily.

The productivity of manufacturing workers has grown substantial every decade this generation, but we’ve only lost manufacturing jobs over the past decade. Since 2001, we’ve lost about one-third of all manufacturing jobs in the U.S., 50,000 factories have closed, and China’s share of the overall U.S. goods trade deficit, absent petroleum, has grown to 80 percent. The housing and auto market collapses acutely hurt manufacturing, but China’s cheating has chronically plagued the sector.

Ending China’s currency manipulation — one way or another — will boost our exports, create good middle class jobs, and revitalize our manufacturing sector. The rest of the world will cheer us. And, what will China do? The only strategy that has ever compelled China to revalue its currency was the threat of substantial tariffs. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham passed an amendment with strong bipartisan support to impose a 27.5 percent tariff on Chinese goods in 2005, and within weeks, China revalued its currency.

Quiet diplomacy does not work. The best thing the House and Senate can do right now is pass similar legislation to strengthen the President’s hand in these talks. A stable world depends on a strong American economy. This must be the priority. (By the way, members of Congress can see just how many jobs their own districts have lost to China here.)

Laura Halvorsen (guest)
FL:

To be honest, I don't think the president is in any position to get tough with China. The president ceded much of our leverage with China in passing his massive spending legislation, stimulus and bailouts - all of which was heavily funded by Chinese lending and debt buying. China is in the cat bird seat, a seat that Obama politely offered them.

Should China call in our debts or make a significant change to their currency, our economy would collapse. It's as simple as that. To that end, Obama is stuck walking a political tightrope with China. If he treats China with the same arrogance and pomposity that he's treated Israel with, things could get ugly. It's not a matter of whether or not Obama "should" get tough with China, but rather whether or not he "can" - and the answer to that is no. He's backed us into a corner. As long as we remain so lopsidedly dependent on China economically, we're in no position to make demands.

Lee Olyer (guest)
CA:

Is it humanly possible for the left to get any "whimpier"? Gov. Bob McDonnell did not advocate slavery, did not advocate secession, did not advocate any rebellion against the U.S. government. He is simply acknowledging the state's history - nothing more.

Do Democrats actually believe he is pining for the good old days of slavery? Nonsense. This is a non-issue that the left is trying to turn into a phony "Republicans Support Return of Slavery!" headline.

You can file this right next to all the rest of the unsupported accusations of "faux-racism".

Reuel Castillo (guest)
CA:

Celebrating the Confederacy is nothing short of celebrating slavery, secession, and treason. Period. End. Stop.

For all of the heritage arguments I've heard (and having lived in Richmond, Va. - the capital of the Confederacy, across the street from the Daughters of the Confederacy museum in the Fan no less) the fact of the matter remains that the Confederacy stood for slavery, secession and indeed treason.

Bob McDonnell was always known to be a social conservative though, and the Virginia electorate is getting exactly what they voted for. Virginians are going to have to take a hard look in the mirror and decide if they want to reject one of the darkest times of Virginia history, or march towards a return to it.

Arthur Gorham (guest)
FL:

Why can't they call it "Civil War History Month", instead of "Confederate History Month", to avoid offending people? Germany doesn't celebrate a "Nazi History Month" as it is understood how offensive and inappropriate that would be.

Though there may be some who take issue with my comparison, others might equally believe that the Confederacy's centuries of slavery, and treatment of said individuals, indeed constituted a form of genocide.

Chris Sells (guest)
AL:

I find it ironic that Arena members who are professors (you do teach, correct?) jump on a soapbox dismissing acknowledgement of American history. Maybe spending time teaching not only students, but anyone who wishes to learn positive and negative aspect of history and political thought this country may be able to tackle the issues of this century. My suggestion is starting with Roger Williams.

James Connolloy (guest)
FL:

The South rebelled against the constitutionally elected government of the United States. They did so for a lot of very bad and hateful reasons. They got whupped. Get over it.

Learn the lessons for today about what happens when misguided demagogues foster illegal rebellion, and move on. There is no need to celebrate the stupidity that caused so much death, heartache, destruction and deprivation for millions of people throughout the rebellious States, not to mention the pain of the widows and families of the men and boys who so bravely defended the Constitution set forth by our founding fathers.

Andrew Shafer (guest)
WA:

I think Mr. Lincoln erred. He should have let the southern states secede. Their morally corrupt system would have surely collapsed under its own weight of greed and self interest. Perhaps that was what was really necessary to create a more perfect union. And if not, then at least we'd have some place to send the tea bagging looney tunes who are hogging the national dialogue.

Linda Anastasiou (guest)
NY:

Why don't we have a Nazi History Month too while we're at it? Is persecuting and murdering a group of people over a period of 10 years worse than enslaving and murdering another group of people for 200 years? And then committing treason and fighting a bitter war against your own countrymen to protect your right to do so? The "states' rights" argument is a fiction. By "states' rights" they meant their right to enslave, terrorize and commit cultural genocide against millions of their fellow Americans.

David Warren (guest)
VA:

Well, I thought all these "history months" were stupid...until I saw many comments that the Civil War was all about racism and slavery. Apparently, a lot of Americans need to take American history over again. They can start by reading: "The Vineyard of Liberty" by James MacGregor Burns, "The Impending Crisis 1848-1861" by David M. Potter, and "Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction" by James M. McPherson. I am curious to read Eric Foner's books, also. The human psyche hasn't changed. There are still the select few people at the top hoarding and only willing to pay the many people at the bottom as little as possible.

Bill McKellin (guest)
NY:

In celebrating the Confederacy and the actions of the soldiers who fought against the United States, he is also celebrating the men who killed tens of thousands of loyal Americans who fought bravely and successfully to preserve the U.S. and end slavery.

Brendan Paredes (guest)
WI:

That this should immediately be able race got really old about 20 years ago. Would the Civil War have happened had there been no slavery in the south? Probably. Frankly, the social and economic differences between the two regions, coupled with the growing power of the North through its larger population base, made it inevitable as long as the South was primarily agricultural. Slavery was the flash point and invariably became the focus for the fight since it was the issue for southern agricultural plantation owners, in particular cotton kings.

But, the fight was coming eventually as power shifted signficantly to the Industrial North. For the North and for Blacks, that's all the war was about; Slavery. For the South though, particularly Virginia, it was about their country, Virginia, and neighboring countries in the South, being oppressed by the North and Northern Economic interests. On a narrow technical level, they were correct in that they were and are a sovereign state. Thomas Jackson and Robert E. Lee certainly weren't going to war over slavery. And that is what the Governer is celebrating; Virginians who believed their cause just as right as the Revolution their Grandfather's fought in.

Jonathan Wolfman (guest)
MD:

Has any other nation on earth taken so much care to coddle the memory of a 145-year-old illegal and thoroughly failed rebellion against itself? It's one thing for benighted rubes and militiamen to celebrate the Confederacy. It's quite another for a sitting governor to do it but that's precisely what Virginia's Bob McDonnell's done by declaring April--the months the Civil War both began and ended -- Confederate History Month. Please do not tell me it's about serious history, teaching or research. That always goes on at UVA, William and Mary.This is a sick sop to right-wing Virginia voters and a slap at decent Virginians, at Americans, at you. Why are we the sole country ever, ever to celebrate and pamper the memory of a sustained, vicious, illegal revolt against itself? When you understand -- you probably do understand -- if you think too long on this, you just sicken.

Danny Johnson (guest)
TX:

It seems northerners would want to demonize that part of our American history. Slavery was indeed a major factor in the Civil War but it wasn't the only factor. As a Texan, I'm proud of my state and I'm proud of our history -- all of our history. I'm proud of the men who fought for the southern cause. Whether history chooses to praise or condemn, they fought for what they felt was right.

They say that victors get to write the history books, and that's very true. When I visited my nation's capital in Washington, D.C., and visited the memorials, I found a somewhat different perspective than I had learned.

That being said though, this is still my country. The United States of America. The war is over. We've moved on. The issue has been settled. I make no apology for my ancestors; in fact, I'm proud of them. They fought for what they believed in right or wrong. They paid a terrible price for that fight. But the nation, in hindsight, is better for it.

Joshua Cuevas (guest)
GA:

We certainly want to teach history, but that's completely different than honoring a source of national disgrace. Some here have confused the two.

I've heard arguments (from a professor at the University of Georgia, no less) that the Civil War was fought because of economic issues and states' rights issues, not slavery, which is an unconscionable position. The economic issue was the right of Southerners to use free slave labor to enrich themselves, and the states' rights issue was the right of states to decide that part of their population should be enslaved. The South did not only suffer a humiliating military defeat, it was fighting for the most unethical cause this country has ever known. There is reason to study the South's position, but certainly not to honor it.

Here, where a great deal of racism still exists and most of the power structure is comprised of white men with a good ole boy mentality to the exclusion of others, it is very offensive to have a "Confederate Month." It is offensive to blacks, to Hispanics, to anyone not from the South and many from it, and to progressives who believe that our goal should always be to move towards a more civilized society. We should not officially honor the most disgraceful moment in our history.

Kiki connors (guest)
ME:

I am not a Southerner. I was born and raised in the North. I was of the understanding the South went to war over the sovereignty of their individual states (state's rights). They were still of the mind that their state was their country. They were suspicious of and did not trust a central federal government based in Washington D.C. (Considering what we are facing in the present...it appears they had a point.)

The southern rebel soldier didn't own plantations ... much less slaves ... and when asked why they fight ... "to retain slavery" was never their answer. They always said "because the North invaded us and we are protecting our homes, family and property." I can't cite which Confederate officer said "we should have freed the slaves..then fired on Fort Sumpter."

Our country is now split down the middle with different philosophies and cultural persuasions. It has been a long time coming. Those two ideologies will wage a more severe battle in the not too distant future. It is underway as we speak.

"The Civil War is the crux of our history. We cannot understand any part of our past, from the Constitutional Convention, down to this morning, without eventually arriving at the Civil War."

Jon Davenport (guest)
TX:

For the life of me, I can't possibly understand why Gov. Bob McDonnell saw the need or reason to make such a recognition. At a time when the Republican Party is trying (and is) making strides to bring in the center of the country which includes large parts of the minority culture, why make this rather dumb move?

It doesn't matter if the voters wanted it or that he isn't advocating slavery or anything of the like - this was a dumb move, plain and simple. This was unnecessary and another misstep for Republicans at a time when they have the wind at their back with the electorate.

On China - I think Ms. Halverson hit the nail on the head above.

Jay M (guest)
VA:

Why can't we have the governor declare a jobs for the unemployment month, when they educate the state's unemployed base about “history" of how best to get jobs? Where he can invite the state's large organizations to take advantage of the payroll tax cuts and incentives recently passed by Congress? Was he not elected by us on the jobs agenda?

We don't want the Terry Schiavo Republican; we don't want the Republican of the last Congress they held. For god's sake, was it not obvious when you ran and spoke to us, governor? Get off the social issues and get us to work.

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The Arena is a cross-party, cross-discipline forum for intelligent and lively conversation about political and policy issues. Contributors have been selected by POLITICO staff and editors. David Mark, Arena's moderator, is a Senior Editor at POLITICO. Each morning, POLITICO sends a question based on that day's news to all contributors.